Gene Roseberry

posted by Gene on Mar 5

He lounges on his bed, head and feet elevated on their own mounds of pillows and blankets, hand loosely swirling his bottle of V8, spicy, oz. 12, over his stomach.  As he sips the drink he listens to the classical music prelude to the latest Moth story.  The computer monitor flickers with rice donations.  Correct, 10 grains.  Correct, 10 grains.  A thought flicks through his head regarding the test of his latest genetic algorithm running unseen behind the browser.  Something to try when it’s finished.  The music fades, the storyteller is announced.  The founder of The Moth?  It will be an excellent story.  He takes a long sip and holds the spicy liquid on his tongue, pressing it to the back of his throat and into his split lip to eek out as much pain as he can from the committee determined, tout le monde, definition of spicy.  As the story starts the computer beeps indicating the test is complete.  The screen flashes, 10 grains correct, and he smiles to himself.  “I am so cool,” he thinks.

posted by Gene on Mar 3

posted by Gene on Feb 26

Sidney thinks I look like an alien

posted by Gene on Feb 24

I’m a rebel.  I’m not the classic TV rebel, in that I don’t wear leather, smoke, or drive a motorcycle.  Still, I think I qualify because when given a command my immediate inclination is to do the opposite, or at the very least, not comply.  I think this stems from my deep rooted aversion to doing things solely because others want it, or even being seen as doing such, but that’s not the topic of this post.

This topic comes up because I hang out with opinionated self sheltering young females accustomed to issuing commands on a bi-secondly basis.  Inevitably some are directed at me, and unfortunately I apparently went over some limit today and was a tidbit snippy with one of the females.  Not really bad at all, but the event prompted the thought process I’m expelling in this post.

Some commands are worse than others, in that they inflame some other sensibility of mine beyond my gut level dislike of orders.  The one that prompted all this is, “You’re done.”  This is pretty new to me, but it’s how these females try to end conversations they don’t like.  It usually comes up whenever I mention nipples, tongues, bodily fluids, the fact that sex exists, dismemberment, stuff like that.

This is a problematic command.  First, it’s a command.  Second, it’s a censorship.  I understand people have the right to try to shape their environment, which includes trying to stop me from exposing them to reality, but I also have free speech rights, so suck it up.  Third, it offers nothing itself.  I recognize that I sometimes utter sentences that could be interpreted to be very similar in tone to the command I’m currently dissecting, but, I think, mine differ.  Usually, I try to steer conversations with sentence types other than order, like query, or tangent, or non sequitur, and usually these conversation manipulations include some rationale for the interference, and/or commentary on the subject.

Here’s the simple version.  I don’t like being bossed around.  I don’t like being bossed around by 50-year-olds with big brains and doctorates, guys twice my size, people with guns, badges, or official titles, people with large bank accounts, people with hordes of followers, military training, or “contacts”, so it’s not surprising that I don’t like being bossed around by pipsqueak coeds.

posted by Gene on Jan 27

I have a cousin who’s a lineman for Michigan.  I’m pretty sure lineman is an accurate term.  Anyway, he get’s lots of praise, attention, and whatnot for his achievements in athletics, and I don’t begrudge him.  I am always inclinded to think of brain scans, though.

And you all thought me becoming a bum was a bad idea.

posted by Gene on Jan 25

My site was down for a day or two a day or two ago.  I trust you all survived.

Work is slowly encroaching in on me from all sides.  I can feel it coming.  It will crush me and drive any will to get a job from me before I graduate.  Send your condolences and cash to my parents.

The gang only plays D&D for like 2 or 3 hours at a time.  I dunno if they get into grooves that way.  It doesn’t seem to groove right, exactly.  I need that groove to improve my DMing.  /sigh  Still, at least they play, which is more than can be said for the game I’m in.

Perhaps on a related note, Pat’s grandpa died.  Pat’s making the trek back up from Vegas, consequently.  That is all I know on the subject, but I imagine Pat’s sad to some degree.  So… sux0r.

Finished the first book of Dune.  Not the actual book, the book within a book.  You know how they divide books into books sometimes.  I’m at the part where Paul attains a higher consciousness or whatever.  Prekky sweet.

It was snowing outside.  ForcastFox says it will some more.  Right now we’ve got a slight covering, is all.

Today I swim, and shave, and shower, and various other words that start with S.  Step, shimmy, shake, swallow, scramble, shamble, stagger, scamper, salivate, sashay, skip, start, succumb, stop, stroak, shed, scratch, slurp, snap, sniff, sneer, smile, slouch, slur, slump, shoot, splash, stride, strafe, sing, and possibly sneeze.  But, first, sleep… snooze, snore, slumber.

posted by Gene on Jan 15

I think of myself as an ethical guy.  I donate blood, for instance, and I do so because I think it’s a duty to subject one self to pain and inconvenience if it will keep someone from dieing.  However, I don’t follow this perfectly.

The main problem is to do with my life in general.  I should be sacraficing my life and working tirelessly to become a great scientist or doctor or whatever and trying to solve the great problems of humanity.  But I don’t.  I spend my life trying to make myself happy.

Intellectually I think I would sacrifice my life in order to save others, you know, valiantly like happens in movies all the time.  I’m not positive, because how could one be, but I’m pretty sure I would.  But that’s not the same.  Death is not as big a sacrifice as a miserable life.

So, what I’ve concluded, is that I have a limit.  I’ve set an arbitrary line somewhere beyond which I’m not willing to sacrifice for my ethical beliefs.  Somewhat humbling.  I mean, I always knew I wasn’t perfect but this is a somewhat stark proof of the point.

Kinda sad.

…

I’m sure I can come up with rational sounding modifications to my ethics, or some other form of rationalization, to keep me happy, though.

posted by Gene on Jan 12

Free weekend had I.  No homework really, yet.  Played D&D, thought about D&D, worked on D&D, read about D&D, watched movies about D&D… my 5 favorite things.  Well, not quite really, since by played I mean DM’d, but DMing is quite fun in my current situation, as well.  The gang leveled and thought they were going to defeat their arch nemesis, but were tricked by my clever placement of a different human in the dungeon.  :0

A bunch of us went swimming today.  Consequentially, I took a shower.  Strange happening was noticed recently.  It is pictured below.  There’s not a lot to see, but some of you still might not get it.  See if you can see what troubles me.

It is in a mirror... which could make it tricky

I’ll leave you all to puzzle over that.  Or at least, I think I will.  Probably totally obvious to everyone and it’s only I that would never notice if it weren’t for it being me.  /shrug

Also, listen to Stephen Fry’s podcast thing.  It’s good.  I’ve only listened to the most recent one, on language and grammar, but I suggest you check it out.  Especially you linguists out there (Donny).

I’m sure work will commence in earnest soon.  Boy how I’m looking forward to that.

posted by Gene on Dec 13

So I went outside with nothing but my shorts on and flexed and roared and looked primal.  Nobody was around to take pictures, though.

I’m pretty alone in Anderson tonight.  The girls fled for fear of weather.  They all made it home fine, except Megan who apparently had an incident.  I think those things have to be self fulfilling or something.  She’s fine though, just slid around a bit or something.

The main Asians are still here.  They made me dinner and I made them dessert.  They’re all leaving early tomorrow to go on a grand vacation adventure.

Mom’s coming to get me tomorrow and take me home.  Just Aaron and Kim for the first few days, but Pat’s coming back, and Donny, and Sidney may even visit.  Should be fun times.

Donny was up visiting but he ran away, too.  He’s got this cool work setup where he has to drive back to Portland every weekend.  Neato, huh?

I got an A in 480, that’s the capstone class.  I got A-’s in Boris’s classes, which is good, considering.  I somehow only got a B in Physics, even though it was probably the easiest class.  I think most of the blame falls on having a final at 8 am.  I don’t do well at 8 am.  It’s ok, though, was taking it just for fun and all.  Grades were up really fast this quarter.

I should sleep so I can wake up when or before mom get’s here.  Sidney actually updated her blog.  There are videos featuring my voice from when we went to Lauren’s house last weekend.  That’s all for now.

posted by Gene on Dec 4

I’ve been fairly absent for like a week, so now you get treated to the quick update post.

Thanksgiving break happened. Yusuke came home with me and the dinner was just the parents and us. I think Yusuke fed himself better this year. The dinner was good. I like turkey.

Other than eating I hung out with Kim and Aaron a bit and watched a bunch of podcasts and TV shows. I watched all of Undergrads under recommendation from fairly trusted sources but didn’t like it. I don’t think I really loled once except on the episode I watched with Kim and Aaron, and that was mostly because of our jokes, not the show’s. /shrug

Since I’ve been back at school I’ve been working long hours on a Software Engineering presentation I gave today. We were the first group. I think our group did the best, and I did as well as can be expected for my part. Now we have this ridiculous design document due Friday we’ve got to work on. Once that’s done, and I finish up some crappy mundane assignments for Algorithms, all I have left is finals. Can go home on Thursday.

The other big news is photographed below. Merry Christmas to those who celebrate, and to those who don’t, please enjoy this arbitrary gift I give you.

this is what I looked like for a day

up to the minute facial hair status

proof of pants

All pictures taken by Aki. Miho would have gotten some up here, but she deleted hers. tsk tsk.